Wuhan Seafood Market May Not be the Origin of COVID-19
A new study on the coronavirus by US scientists shows that the virus that causes the global pandemic is naturally produced.
According to an analysis of the evidence published in the Nature journal, "the novel coronavirus is neither constructed in the laboratory nor purposefully manipulated by humans."
Robert Gary, Professor of medicine at Tulane University, is one of the authors of the paper. He believes that it is very necessary to use the whole team's strength to explore the origin of COVID-19 as the conspiracy theory is popular on the Internet.
Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, also supported the article's argument, saying on his personal blog that the study proved that the coronavirus originated from nature and was highly convincing.
The researchers found that coronavirus does not have a previously used virus backbone structure, so it was not created by humans and maybe a combination of a virus found in bats and another virus carried by pangolins. The novel coronavirus is 96% similar to the coronavirus found in bats, and it is the 4% variation that explains why it is so infectious.
"We have learned from studies of other coronaviruses that they can get this variation, and then they become more pathogenic," Gary told ABC News. This is a good explanation for why the virus is so easy to spread and has led to the current pandemic. "
Mutations in the surface protein may have triggered the pandemic, but a weaker version of the virus had been circulating in the population for years, or even decades, before accumulating to the present, Gary said.
At the same time, although many people think the virus originated in a seafood market in Wuhan, China, Gary said it is also a wrong idea. "Our analysis, and others, point to an earlier origin. There must be some cases in Wuhan, but they are not the origin of the virus. "
